This is offtopic so mod away, but the article made me wonder. Where are all the games like PacMan? I don't mean PacMan itself, but simple games like that which you can play in five or ten minutes here and there? When I had an Amiga 10-15 years ago it seemed that there was a lot more variety in the types of games available.

Absolutely. I now have responsibilities, and can't afford to spend hours on end playing games. Very few things worthwhile that I can get the hang of in a short time, yet are fun enough to play mre than a few times.... Crap... I look forward to the newest Orbitz game coming out!

I think this is one of the big drivers beind the "retro-gaming" movement. It's not so much that 30-somethings are trying to recapture some lost element of their youth, it's just that many people are so drained by their jobs that they just want something simple to unwind with. But gamers who like old fashioned games are probably happy with the various emulators out there and wouldn't have much reason to purchase some newly-created simple game. So there's no market for these types of quickie games.

Anyhow, that's my theory. I'm not a gamer either way but I admit a fondness for retro games. There's no friggin' way I could be bothered with any of the games that come out these days (even though the chicks in them look way sexier than that broad you had to save in Donkey Kong).

I have been in the same boat for several years now. I almost religiously stay away from MMORPGs precisely for this reason. I tend to only buy games which don't require a great deal of time investment. Lately I've been playing Criterion's Burnout series (2+3), which is a lot of fun and can be played for 10-30 minutes at a time for the most part. Even online, I can hop into BO3 for a game or two and hop back out.

'Course, I often find that the clock has jumped ahead 2 hours when I've only been playing for 15 minutes... It seems that certain games often have time distortion fields surrounding them. Go figure.

Where are all the games like PacMan? I don't mean PacMan itself, but simple games like that which you can play in five or ten minutes here and there?

Mostly to cell phones and PDAs, though you can still play them online at places like PopCap. [popcap.com] I'll also double another poster's suggestion about the GameBoy; WarioWare [warioware.biz] is a good example of simple game play for the new millenium. Simple game design seems to have been shunted to the "puzzle" genre of gaming.

Check out PopCap games. I heard about them because one of the audio guys from the old early 90's asm demo crew Future Crew ended up working there. They make kick-ass simple games with no adware or spyware. You can play limited versions of the game in flash in your browser, or buy cheap licenses and download them for Wintel. www.popcap.com.

Cube. Quake 1. Lots of FPS games are great for hop-in-and-play, except for the new ones, where your load and download times will suck up half of your quick break. But frequently I'll have a 10 minute break and just pop open Cube, join a server, frag for 9 minutes, then politely bow out. If you play FPS games, Cube is dead simple - no complex tricks, obscure pickups, or confusing levels.

If you're not into FPS games, there are numerous online Popcap games. If you like that sort of thing:P

Only I would have put it inside a more controlled environment (like in a building) and made it a FPS. I also would have made the walls of the maze all solid colors and with the use of chroma keying, had changable textures overlaid on them.

The only episode of Seinfeld I watched during it's original run was the last one where the main characters get their comeupance via a "Good Samaritan" law. The show, despite it's banalness, had moments of genius, which made it a favorite of the "water cooler" discussion set. I dislike the show even more now that it's everywhere on the dial in syndication.